Keep Holding On
by hollygwood
Summary: Quinn and Kurt friendship one shot, Quinn is confused and only Kurt can help her figure it out. Post Grilled Cheesus.


**Hello :) Another one shot because I'm such a failure. **

**This is set after Grilled Cheesus, I've been writing a lot of Klaine recently and it felt nice to go back to episodes before all that happened. Plus this has been in my head for a while. And I love Quinn/Kurt friendship SO much. This is cheesy fluff, so sorry about that. It's also quite critical of religion. Enjoy x**

"Kurt?" The voice was anxious, unsure, but unmistakably belonged to Quinn Fabray. Kurt sighed. Just what he needed.

"Have you come to try and exorcise me? Force bible quotes down my throat?" He snapped, as she walked carefully into the room, "Come to-"

"No." She replied firmly, before indicating the armchair opposite Kurt in the Starbucks he was sitting in. "Can I sit down?"

"Sure." Kurt replied, his voice still wary, his hand closed around his latte. Then, after a silence he added; "my Dad woke up. He's going to be ok."

"I know, I heard. I'm so glad, Kurt." Quinn replied honestly, smiling timidly at her friend.

"It wasn't because of the prayers you know." Kurt said sharply.

"I know that too. It was because he's strong and a fighter, and he had you love him and believe in him. That's what's important." Quinn smiled, then she bent her head, her soft blonde hair falling down on one side, the other side kept at bay in a small, neat braid pinned back. Kurt was silent for several minutes while he digested what Quinn said.

"I thought you of all people would be convinced your prayers had swung it for him." Kurt eventually smiled dryly.

"That's sort of the reason I came to see you. Other than to make sure you were ok, of course." Quinn smiled nervously. Kurt nodded as if to ask her to continue. "See, recently I've been struggling with some issues, and I think you're the only person who can help me."

"Please don't tell me you're a lesbian, Quinn, I've got enough on my plate." Kurt smirked, and Quinn laughed softly at him.

"Nope, although when I was in labour after regionals I seriously considered the prospect." Kurt laughed aloud, and Quinn relaxed a little, "no, it's sort of a religion thing."

"And you chose me, the crazy atheist of Lima to help you?" Kurt raised an eyebrow.

"When I say religion, I mean I think I might have lost my religion." Quinn said slowly, and Kurt widened his eyes.

"Really? I didn't see that one coming, Miss Fabray, I thought maybe another pregnancy." He smirked a little.

"Never again. Or at least not for a long while." Quinn replied, and she stared down at her lap for a few minutes, not speaking.

"Jokes aside, this is really troubling you isn't it Quinn?" Kurt asked gently, setting his latte down and leaning forward. Quinn looked up, her curtain of blonde hair swinging gently.

"More confusing me," she replied carefully, and he could see her thought processes moving.

"Quinn, tell me what you're thinking, you won't go to hell for being confused. More likely to for talking to a dirty sinner." Kurt said lightly, his hands clasped together.

"Is that why you've always struggled with religion? Because there are homophobic teachings?" Quinn asked, curiously.

"It's a big part of it." Kurt answered her, tapping his fingertips on the coffee table. After several more minutes of silence he looked up at his friend, a girl who only a year ago was still laughing as he got tossed into a dumpster. "Quinn, you and me have been in the same class at school for twelve years." Quinn widened her eyes, but nodded. "You never said one word to me until we were eight. And then you walked up to me, and you told me I was going to hell. You told me I was a sinner, there was something wrong with me. Then Puck pushed me in to the mud and you both ran away. I think Santana was there." He mused, but his grey eyes were burning into Quinn, and if she wasn't mistaken there were tears unshed but glistening in the grey depths. His eyes were full of hurt, not just from the things she said, but the things everyone said, and Quinn had never felt more ashamed of herself.

"Kurt, I'm so sorry.." Quinn began, and Kurt held his hand up.

"It was a long time ago, and I wasn't bringing it up to make you feel bad. I've heard a lot worse since then. I'm used to it." His tone was light, but his shoulders were slumped and the tears were a few seconds away from dripping down his cheeks. Quinn swallowed. Then he continued speaking, "I brought it up because hopefully you'll understand at least one reason why myself and the church will never be best friends. I would never group all Christians as homophobes, but the bottom line is Christianity seems to teach that I was born wrong; that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. And if they don't teach that then they teach that I'm choosing some kind of hideously warped path to hell, like I'm a murderer or something." He swallowed and she could see him controlling his emotions, and then he spoke again, his eyes dryer now. "It's not just that though, I find it impossible to believe in this thing that I can't see, can't feel; if the world was a perfect place and nobody hurt, then maybe, but it's not. It's a messed up world, my mother got taken away from me when I was eight, my father nearly got taken from me now. It's hard to believe there's apparently someone up there 'watching out for me' you know?" Another silence, before Kurt added, "but this isn't about me, this is about you, Quinn. What are you confused about?" Quinn watched Kurt, his eyes so kind, so eager to help her. And she'd behaved horribly to him their whole lives. Twelve years they'd known each other. She remembered that day he referred to now. The truth was she didn't mean it. All the adults around her had said things like that about people like Kurt and she simply copied them. And the fact that all the kids at school treated Kurt that way didn't help. Quinn had always had a need to be liked, and through school she discovered by keeping in with certain people she could achieve that. After the run in with Kurt at eight they didn't speak until they both joined Glee club. Glee had changed Quinn, she'd known that for a while, and though she didn't want to say it to anyone, she loved that club and everyone in it with all her heart. She suddenly realised Kurt was still staring at her, waiting for her to answer his question about why she was confused. She fought to assemble her jumbled thoughts into a coherent sentence.

"I guess all the stuff that happened last year is still affecting me. I mean, I made one stupid mistake with Puck. I felt horrible that day, I had a fight with my mom AND Santana, I felt ugly, Finn wasn't around, and Puck was there. Puck made me feel beautiful, and I got drunk, which was stupid. But the point is, I made this one mistake, I was fifteen and I messed up, and because of that one mistake I lost my family, my home, my Cheerio status, everyone started picking on me. I just feel like if there is a God, why wasn't He looking out for me? And then with your dad," Kurt flinched, it was an automatic reaction to the horrors of the past week, "I was thinking about how if your dad...well if anything worse happened, you'd be on your own. How could 'God' let that happen? What did you ever do. What did any of us do? Everyone, all of us feel pain, bad things happen to all of us; Artie can't walk, Puck's mom is an alcoholic, Finn lost his dad. I just can't help but feel that if God does exist he must be sadistic." Kurt looked at Quinn, open mouthed as she ranted. "I know, you didn't see that coming, did you?" She couldn't help but smirk, then her face became serious again. "Look I don't KNOW if I've lost my faith, I just know I'm confused, and that maybe I don't need religion to be happy. How's that for a revelation?"

"I think," Kurt replied, reaching out to hold Quinn's hand, "the power of friendship and love is more important than trying to be perfect in the eyes of the guy in the sky who might or might not exist, or trying to live by this book that nobody knows who wrote it anyway?" Quinn smiled gently, and Kurt continued, "the last year has taught me that good things come out of bad things. What we have in Glee club is love, we love each other, I believe in our friendship, we look out for each other, we're all there for each other. That's a pretty good place to be from where I'm standing. What I'm saying is that you'll figure out eventually how you feel about the whole religion thing, but what you don't have to be confused about is us. We're all here for you, forever." Kurt smiled, and Quinn sniffed back tears, smiling back at him.

"You're right." And she genuinely knew he was. This was real, this was what mattered, feeling Kurt Hummel's hand warm in her hers, hearing his genuine words, knowing that in this town there were twelve people who would always be there for her, no matter how bad things got. Maybe she didn't need to constantly pray to this God, worry about whether she was a good enough Christian, try and seek constant approval from something that might not even exist. If she just focused on what she did have; amazing friends and a loving boyfriend, maybe, just maybe everything else might just fall into place.


End file.
